Monday, December 14, 2015

This Thursday December 17, Sotheby’s NYC will offer at auction an outstanding collection of images from Robert Frank’s The Americans, one of the most influential books of photography ever published. Collectors Ruth and Jake Bloom assembled this extraordinary group of iconic photographs over more than two decades, collecting 77 of the 83 pictures reproduced in the 1959 book. This seminal series of images, so compelling on the printed page, gains a new resonance when seen as photographic prints. The sale represents
the first time such an extensive collection of photographs from The Americans has appeared at public auction.You can see the complete auction catalogue HERE.

Friday, December 11, 2015

I have just produced a series of three bookworks under my imprint FAQEDITIONS. Initially the set of three books were offered on photobookstore UK, where each book has with it a limited edition print. If you are interested in the book / print option you can go to the photobookstore HERE.

Over the coming weeks I will be releasing each of these books here on my blog. The first in the series will be NOT FOOD OR SEX. With photographs made in the real world, the book is an exploration into the nature of things. The edit of 33 pictures is a playful narrative of seemingly disconnected images. Sequencing is bizarre and unusual and is open to many interpretations. There are never any answers only questions.

The book is a signed
and numbered edition of 50 copies, 255 x 180mm, 32 pages printed on 130gsm satin stock with a 300gsm satin cover. Prices are, €30 / £22 / US$34 / A$45 / NZ$48, which includes packing and
postage. For payment you can simply log on to my PayPal account using my
email address harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Photo-eye have just published their best-of-list... there are 150 titles that make up their lists with 24 reviewers presenting a point of view. Photo-eye say this: Since 2009, photo-eye’s Best Books feature has been comprised of lists
from multiple contributors. In recent years multi-contributor lists
appear in an increasing number of venues. At photo-eye, Best Books is
not about achieving an authoritative overview. In fact, we're confident
in saying no one assembling a multi-contributor year-end best photobook
list could possibly expect to meet this goal — it would be antithetical
to such a project to begin with. But while the expansion of voices
dilutes the concept of arbiters, it better reflects our topic — the
varied, expanding and unpredictable world of photobooks, too vast for
any one expert to command.

Martin Amis at the photobookstore UK asked me to compile my "best list" for 2015. You can check it out below. And while you are at it you can go to the photobookstore and have a look at their other lists. Recommendations from among others: Simon Baker, Mark Power, Erik Kessels, Pierre Bessard... HERE.

Ron Jude - Lago - quiet authenticity shines in this book which is full of unexpected surprises

Goran Bertok -Requiem, a direct and uncompromising meditation on the subject of death

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

If you think Paul Graham and his work keeps cropping up on my blog, you're right. I mention Paul's work because in my view he is at the forefront of those camera artist's who look hard and long at the world and make pictures from life.
Jörg Colberg is a photography writer I admire equally and if you haven't yet discovered his blog Conscientious I urge you to do so. You can go there HERE.

In a recent post Jörg talks about Paul Graham's The Whiteness of the Whale series, three books ostensibly pivoting on the loose theme of America. Jörg Colberg makes the point that Graham has moved to a position more in line with Jeff Wall, Cindy Sherman or Thomas Demand and further he comments on the intellectual rigor, the thinking, that is apparent in Grahams work.Graham is too cerebrally careful... might gain a little from focusing less on the ball and more on the play.
I feel too much thinking... Where are the errors? Where are the fuck ups? Where do we get to
see that something didn’t quite work out? I just wish Paul Graham’s work were just a little bit flawed, a little bit less careful, less cerebral. but couldn’t there be a bit wabi-sabi?

Yes, Paul Graham's work is intellectually rigorous. That is how the man is. It's his make-up, his personality. I put him in the same ball park as Lewis Baltz... both abundantly perceptive and astute.

Too much thinking can eliminate the possibility of risk taking, curbs spontaneity and kill intuitive decisions. The fact is we are all stuck within the confines of our own inner make-up and like it or not our work will carry the stamp of a visual handwriting that is distinctively our own. If we are confined to a particular way of seeing we are also confined to the process as a whole. That is, what we make and what we do with it. We operate within the confines of our own particular set of blinkers. And there is nothing much we can do about this. Tough but true. The truth is we know too much, we think too much and we go by the rules when we shouldn't. And worse, we avoid risks.

Of course then there are those that say they do take risks. This can be a slippery slope. Are these risks for the right reasons? Very easy to make work for all the wrong reasons, abandon authenticity and slide into clever and not intelligent. There is a lot of this about.

If you risk nothing, you risk everything. Geena Davis

You can the read Jörg Colberg's full piece Paul Graham and the WhalesHERE.

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Robyn Daly is a Melbourne based photographer who makes photobooks. Very good photobooks. Robyn has just sent me her latest self-published edition, CONFETTI. There is more than a hint of irony in the books title because despite Robyn's use of a pastel color palette the images are hard edged with a touch of menace. And to throw the reader completely off-balance the color work in CONFETTI faces off grainy black and white pictures. A hard act, but an accomplished one here. The images and the books edit has all the things I look for in cohesive body of work, mystery, surprise and enigma. Recommended!

Thursday, December 3, 2015

I have just released under my own imprint, FAQEDITIONS, three new photobooks each in a limited edition of 50. The books are available at photobookstore uk and come with a signed and numbered print, one image from each book-work, in an edition of twenty.

The photobookstore says this: These three new books from prolific book maker Harvey Benge continues his
exploration into the nature of things and the profundity to be found in
the banal, the trivial and the overlooked.

Benge believes in the democracy of images where no picture can out-weigh another, however he equally
accepts that there is strength in numbers. This gives rise to the
bizarre and unusual sequencing found in these book-works with strange
narratives open to many interpretations. In Benge's surreal world there
are never any answers only questions.

Signed
and numbered edition of 50 copies only, 33 photographs, 32 pages, 255 x 180 mm with a 150 x 100 mm signed and
numbered print (edition of 20) slipped into the book between
IFC and page 1. Beautifully printed on 130gsm satin stock with the cover on 300gsm satin stock.

For more information you can go to the photobookstore uk HERE and also see a video run-through. Here are just a few of the pages:

About Me

My pictures explore the strange anthropology of cities. The unusual and overlooked in the human landscape.
I am asking the viewer to question the idea that photographs as documents are complete representations of subject.
I'm interested in the universality of life and the idea of parallel lives - when one thing is happening here, something else is happening over there. The democracy of non-places fascinates me, in the knowledge that inevitably nothing is as it seems.
I work and live between Auckland and Paris.
http://harveybenge.com/
email:harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz